Phone Outage Fuels Outrage

3,900 Go 2nd Day Without Service

July 24, 1998|By Karen Ann Cullotta, Tribune Staff Writer.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS — A day after an underground cable was severed in downtown Arlington Heights, tempers flared Thursday when the affected customers learned that they may be without service for at least another day.

In all, about 3,900 customers have been without telephone service since Wednesday. The area affected is bordered by Sigwalt and Magnolia Streets, Wilke Road and Lincoln Lane.

"No one imagines how much you use a phone until you don't have one anymore," said Julia Petrovski, who lives on Evergreen Avenue near the village's downtown. "My husband is sick, and I have no way for the doctor to call him back."

Petrovski and scores of other customers who lost phone service flocked to phone banks set up early Thursday outside Village Hall by Ameritech Corp. The phone company said customers should regain phone service by Friday afternoon.

As residents and local merchants dashed to pay phones, village manager Bill Dixon huddled with officials from Ameritech, Nicor Gas and Capitol Construction Co. to determine how workers boring holes into Arlington Heights Road, near Sigwalt Street, severed two underground cables.

Nicor spokeswoman Janelle Jones said one of its contractors, hired to upgrade a natural gas pipe, accidentally struck the cables. An investigation to determine how the incident happened has begun already, Jones said.

The gas company's pipe upgrade was not associated with any construction taking place nearby at the Arlington Town Square and Village Green projects.

Frank V. Mitchell, an Ameritech spokesman, said the company has assigned crews to work around the clock until phone service is fully restored.

Mitchell said the cables, which contain lines that resemble strands of multicolored spaghetti, were being reconnected at a rate of 100 an hour.

The outage could have been much worse, officials said. Had crews bored through the asphalt at a slightly different angle, four other cables would have been severed, causing 12,000 customers to lose telephone service.

To make its repairs, Ameritech crews drilled through 2 feet of concrete and asphalt on Arlington Heights Road, forcing the closure of a half-block segment of the street.

"This has been horrendous," said Ed Poledziewski, the owner of Floral Galleria at the corner of Sigwalt Street and Arlington Heights Road. "But in the long term, the development downtown will promote business. When all this construction started, we knew we'd eat dust for a while."

Nonetheless, some customers without phone service questioned why the village allowed the construction of two major developments, and an array of utility projects, at the same time.

"We were told the traffic wouldn't be bad over the summer, and it's been terrible," Petrovski said.

Peter Giarelli, a resident of South Chestnut Street, said he was not opposed to the new development. But he voiced concerns for some of his neighbors.

"I'm worried about a lot of the elderly residents. God forbid they need to call for help, because they don't have cell phones," said Giarelli, who dropped by the free phone banks to place a call.

Dixon said the interrupted phone service should not be blamed on the flurry of projects downtown.

"As a community, doing a lot of work at once is good in the long run," Dixon said.